Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like us to go back to page 7. I have a committee motion I would like to move.

Does the committee agree?

Back to page 6, did you say?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Page 7. Mr. Chairman, I move that $136,000 for a senior advisor position be deleted from the Department of Executive activity, not previously authorized in the Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2, 2005-2006. Thank you.

Thank you. There is a motion on the floor, but the Clerk will provide copies of the

motion. We will take a short break. Thank you. The bells will be rung when we are ready to resume. Thank you.

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The motion is in order and has been distributed. To the motion. Mr. Braden.

Mr. Chairman, I am half on side with this motion. Here is where this is sort of normal around here. It is never black and white. We are always dealing in sort of middle shades of pink. I am very much a proponent of the GNWT having the capacity and the resources to deal with impacts of development. The administration of this $500 million tenure fund is a big piece of work. I am not going to challenge the department on the need for this person. But what I am not prepared to do, and here is why I am going along with Mr. Ramsay, is just to say, okay, here is your approval. Go ahead. In such an uncertain volatile decision-making climate for the pipeline itself, we don't know if this project is real. Imperial Oil is saying it isn't economic. The federal government isn't giving any signals about whether or not they are really interested in it. We still have significant hurdles to climb before this project is a given.

Mr. Chairman, in the rest of the supplementary, by my count, among four other departments, there is $1.16 million in other directly related pipeline activities that the government is asking for approval to spend money on. I don't want to get in the way of any of it except for the fact that we don't have a real project yet. Especially given that there is considerable focus on the regulatory decisions, the regulatory process really getting underway, and the no go on that seems to be in November, just two to three weeks from now.

Mr. Chairman, what I wanted to do is propose an amendment to this motion, if Mr. Ramsay is supportive, to say that the approval for this funding be deferred only until such time as we know that the Mackenzie Valley gas project is a real project. I am prepared to give the approval, conditional on a signal that this project is moving ahead. It is going to be when the regulatory framework either starts or doesn't, is in the middle of next month.

Thank you. Mr. Braden is proposing to make an amendment to the motion. If so, can we have it in writing? Thank you.

Okay.

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Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On conference with the Clerk, I found out my amendment would not be appropriate, so I withdraw my proposal for an amendment and suggest we proceed with Mr. Ramsay's motion.

---Withdrawn

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won't prolong this much more than it has to be prolonged. I just want to say to my colleagues and to the government, it is important to take some steps to say no and to put our foot down. The government hasn't got this $500 million yet to my knowledge. Again, it is only $50 million over 10 years, so the $500 million makes it sound a lot better than it is. This announcement is not supposed to come forward until the middle of November, so I would be more inclined to support something like this after the announcement is made and things are moving forward and we have the money in the bank, Mr. Chairman, instead of going forward with it like it is. I say we put our foot down with this one. This is just a start, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. To the motion. Next I have Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be voting in favour of the motion as it is being proposed. I have serious concerns. Are we really even going to get a pipeline? Every word I hear on the street says it is not coming. So I am not comfortable with anything that moves forward to continue to support a pipeline position, so I will be voting with the motion to delete it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. Next I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this position is needed in our regions because we are going to be affected by the pipeline. I just don't like the position being in Yellowknife. I would like to have some regional positions in our region. Mr. Chairman, unless there is something that we don't know regarding the proposed pipeline and the socio-economic agreements that may be coming down the tube, is there some uncertainty on this? Is there somewhere that we know for sure that this is going to happen? Is it not possible to have special warrants for a position like this being requested?

To delete this position within the government, it is in Yellowknife right now so it is a senior advisor position. I think they have enough staff in their department to use someone in this position. Even though it is along the Mackenzie Valley, I do support the work going in our region. I am going to vote in favour of this motion.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I have just a couple of points. First of all, we worked hard for a lot of months in order to get the $500 million for the North. It is true that the money is only for those communities along the Mackenzie Valley because those are the communities that are impacted. In the same way, the diamond socio-economic agreements were basically for the communities and the people in the impacted area. You didn't see a lot of money going into other communities. There will, no doubt, be some spin-off though from this into all the Territories because this $500 million is meant for socio-economic impact. That is everything from treatment centres to education programs to enhanced infrastructure and so on. That all saves us money because it means that we are not going to be taking it out of our little capital budget and have to spend it there, so all of us benefit from this money.

Although the pipeline is an uncertainty, it certainly does seem to be going in the right direction. I don't know which street Mr. Hawkins is listening to people on, but the signals I get are the other way. In the last couple of weeks, there has been some good progress made, and that seems to be continuing.

Mr. Chairman, we would look really foolish, in my view, to first argue for $500 million and then, for the sake of $136,000 have no input at all into how that money is going to be allocated. We are involved right now with Ottawa and with the regional aboriginal organizations on the coordination of how that money is going to flow into the regions. When this money begins to flow -- and I'm not sure exactly when the first payment will be made -- when that happens, then we have a seat at the regional tables to be able to have input into how that money is going to be allocated. We could have no capacity and just sit back here and let somebody else decide on the $500 million. I don't think that is good governance, good economics, good management of money or anything else. We can always say we can do this from within, but it gets tougher and tougher with the amount of things we have on the agenda in the Executive right now to just keep swallowing up more and more responsibilities. I am not convinced that, without additional resources, we are going to be able to manage this well. It is a lot of money to manage.

Mr. Chairman, let me also say that if, for some reason, Imperial were to announce next month that they just were not going to go ahead with the pipeline, they are going to put it on the shelf, we would not be proceeding with this at all, then $500 million wouldn't flow and we would definitely not be looking to go forward with any more of this money. It would stop when that happens. So we are not going to be giving these positions for something that doesn't exist. But as long as that $500 million is going out, I think, as a government, we should be in there helping to manage it.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. To the motion. I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have given it some thought. I can't support this motion at all only because that is something that my chiefs have all been telling me. We need help. We need planning of how to spend this socio-economic funding. If this is one of the ways to address that, then I am going to have to support that because they keep coming to us and we are telling them we have millions of dollars. We don't know how to get at it, spend it, or break it up. If there is any way we can use any of our resources, and add new resources too, to help them address those concerns, I am in favour of that.

The Premier just spoke about the need for that position. If the $500 million doesn't occur, there would be no more need for that. I believe that will be on public record. His commitment is there. We are not going to get strapped with a job that has no value to the next two years especially for our term or in terms of the government for future years. Sometimes that happens. It sounds like there is a commitment here that we are not going to get strapped for a job for nothing.

With regard to me, Mr. Chairman, I would not be supporting at all. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The motion is in order. To the motion.